Pick A Star, Any Star
by JamesPhelpsIsSoHot
Summary: Sometimes the Doctor picks companions simply because of coincidence. And when one follows him… Well, what is a Timelord to do?


**I got this idea for a one-shot after watching The Girl in the Fireplace. The line 'pick a star, any star' to be exact.**

**This finishes where it ends. No more. PM me if you REALLY want to know my headcanon for the rest, but… Yeah.**

**Review!**

Pick A Star, Any Star

It was Christmas Day. And I had always hated Christmas Day.

But of course I remembered the _times_. I had waited for them before, insisting that aliens existed and that they would find us eventually. Because after all, how sad would it be to be the only life out there?

The spaceship that crashed into Big Ben. I ran to the scene, and was the first to be ushered out of the area. My mother called me, but I didn't pick up, because I could hear what the policemen were saying and I was vaguely aware of a camera being trained in my direction.

Then the huge ship that hovered over London. At that time I was working as a lawyer, in Soho, even on Christmas Day (they needed someone to work extra hours, and I needed the money) and then people were screaming on the street. I took photos, and they stayed on my computer for years, until I found use for them.

What intrigued me most were glimpses of a man in a trench coat and a blue suit, and the blue box that seemed to crop up all over London. I didn't go looking for him, of course, but he seemed to fall into my path.

2008. That wasn't Christmas, but I had fainted, in the middle of my work, and when I woke up everyone was talking about the assassination of the American president. I dreamed about horrors, and death, and screaming. Of running, right into the path of a woman called Martha.

I found Martha. And this is where the story starts.

"Hello?" I asked, to the woman that answered the door. She was too old, but she looked similar. "I'm looking for Martha Jones. I have a few questions for her."

"Martha?" The woman called, looking me up and down before nodding, taking my work suit as an all-around aura of respectability. "This isn't about the lawsuit I took out on Annalise Morris, right?"

I shook my head, managing a smile. "It's a little more personal than that. Do you know anything about a blue box? And… Something that you know is missing, but you can't place?"

The woman's eyes widened. She looked like she was about to add something, but then a younger woman appeared. "Yes Mum?" She said. And, I knew, even before she looked at me, that she was the woman in my dreams. The one that had told me about 'The Doctor'.

"Sorry." I said, managing a smile. "I'm sorry to intrude, but are you Martha Jones?"

"Maggie Knowles?" Martha asked, her eyes betraying nothing except a degree of surprise. "Yeah, sorry, you're the lawyer from… Erm…"

"Yeah." I said quickly. "I'm here to ask about… Well, three months ago. When the President was assassinated. No, I'm not a conspiracy nut." I said hastily, when Martha raised an eyebrow. "It's just, I think I remember you."

Soon enough, I was inside the house, with a cup of tea. The older woman (Francine Jones) had left, her nails in her mouth, and I was sitting opposite Martha in the slightly cramped but cosy living room. And, on her cue, I began from the top.

And she gave me a number, on a card, and said, very seriously:

_"The Doctor can be anywhere. If you've noticed him that much, then you must be important."_

oOo

I mentioned I hated Christmas. And… This was why.

"Good on you to stay." The man named Wilf said to me, passing me a cup of tea from his flask. "My daughter, she's in Glasgow. My granddaughter's in Spain, the last we heard."

"Spain's nice." I said, a little distractedly. "Just us two and the queen here. It's nice and quiet."

"Oh, it gives me the chills." Wilf smiled. "London is never this silent. Not even at night. Tell me, what about your family? What are they up to?"

I shrugged, looking up at the starry sky and imagining a blue box up there, whirling by. "I really couldn't care less."

"Oh, don't be like that." Wilf gave me another smile, clapping me on the shoulder. "We all need family at Christmas."

"I'm better off Wilf, believe me." I insisted.

Suddenly, Wilf perked up, and I followed his lead as I began to hear the footsteps too. "Ah!" Wilf said aloud, and I tried to stand a little straighter. "More people!"

"Hello!" A strangely familiar voice said, and my eyes widened as I saw the person to go with it. No… It… After all this waiting…

Because a man with a trenchcoat, a blue suit and mad hair was walking towards Wilf and I. "You're out late." He spoke almost too fast, but then again I could perfectly hear him so it might have been my imagination.

"Just us and the Queen here." Wilf said proudly. "Everyone else has gone. Wilfred Mott, and this is Maggie."

"Hello!" The Doctor grinned at me. "Not with your family?"

I didn't answer. Because my hand was trembling, reaching for my phone, to take a picture of this, before the Doctor slipped away yet again. "You're the Doctor." I said, after a pregnant pause.

"How do you know that?" The Doctor asked me, his face only inches from my own.

"Martha Jones." I said quickly, watching the Doctor's face morph with pain. "I know something happened over this year, I dream about it."

Wilf gave me a surprised look. "I do too." He said unexpectedly. "Are you something to do with it sir?"

"Maggie, Maggie who?" The Doctor said, his face suddenly inches from my own. "Maggie, who are you? No one is supposed to know that. Neither of you should."

"I'm Maggie Knowles, I'm twenty-nine, I'm a lawyer." I listed off quickly. "A nobody. I'm not special."

"Yes you are." The Doctor said, pulling out a strange metal stick thing and seemingly scanning me with it. "Maggie Knowles, _who are-"_

And, just like I had never seen him:

The Doctor was gone.

oOo

I didn't see the Doctor again for a year.

And when I did, it took me by surprise. I was walking along a London street, contemplating whether to buy red or green decorations for the Christmas tree.

The Doctor was walking the other way, from an alley.

"I'm terribly sorry." The Doctor said, once we had collided and my heads was throbbing painfully. "I wasn't looking where I was- Maggie Knowles?"

I looked up, and took a sharp intake of breath. Because, here he was. Like he hadn't aged. The man that had haunted my life since 2005.

"Doctor." I said, managing to calm myself before I started squealing or crying, maybe both. "I… I thought you were dead."

"Nah." He smiled at me, and ruffled his hair a bit. "I've just… Been around a bit."

"I bet the Daleks and the planet in the sky were you." I smiled, grinning when the Doctor nodded. "Wow, what was it like?"

"Same old same old." The Doctor pulled a pair of glasses out of his pocket and scanned me, much like he had done last Christmas. "Hmm. No, you're just an ordinary human girl. Wanna come with me?"

"What?" My brow furrowed. "You don't even know me, Doctor."

He pointed towards the blue box, which was parked in the other end of the alley. "Space and time." The Doctor explained, making a popping sound. "I read up on you."

"How nice." I said, a little sarcastically. "So you get to know who I am but I don't get to know about you?"

"I'm the Doctor." The Doctor said, a little too mystically for my taste. "You're Maggie Knowles, we're both bored, and you want to see the stars. What do you say then? Space and time, just like you dreamed. You humans aren't the only ones out there Maggie."

I had always hated Christmas, I had always been reserved. But the Doctor was… Special, just like I wasn't. And so I gave up trying to be normal, or civil, or any of those things.

And I kissed him.

I pulled away after a fraction of a second, my face flushing up brightly. "I'm sorry." I apologised quickly. "I know… I'd better be off, you know. Places to go, people to see…"

But then he kissed me, and it tasted of blueberry scones and buttered toast and it made my knees weak. Because I was kissing someone I had been obsessed with for the entirety of my life.

"Pick a star, any star." He said, pulling away with a wicked grin. "Come on!"


End file.
